Posted at 9:00 AM ET. Odds are subject to change

TENNESSEE -2.5 -110 over Louisville

Food City Center – Knoxville, TN

7:00 PM ET. Louisville is rolling, Tennessee is stumbling, and the market is reacting exactly how you’d expect it to. The Cardinals sit at 9–1, just obliterated Memphis by 26 while covering with ease as a 17-point favorite, and already own road wins at Indiana plus quality victories over Cincinnati and Kentucky. They’ve been cashing tickets too, 5–1 against the number in their last six. Everything about Louisville screams “hot hand.” Everything about them says top-five side.

Tennessee, meanwhile, looks broken on paper. Since getting revenge on Houston in Las Vegas, the Vols have dropped three straight games—Kansas, Syracuse, and Illinois—and now sit at a miserable 3–7 ATS. The shine is gone, the narrative has flipped, and the market is treating Tennessee like a team struggling to keep their head above water in the rankings. That’s exactly where the opportunity opens.

Strip away the optics and look at the margins. Two of Tennessee’s three losses came by a combined seven points. A couple bounces and suddenly the Vols are viewed very differently. If Tennessee had won even one of those tight games, this line flips, and the Vols are favored at home. Instead, we’re being offered Smokey at a discount in their own building simply because recent results look ugly.

Louisville isn’t immune to letdowns either. Nestled inside this impressive run is a loss at Arkansas as a 2.5-point favorite—proof that the Cards can come back to earth. Now they walk into Knoxville against a desperate Tennessee team that’s trying to find its feet again. This is not a comfortable spot for a road favorite whose stock is peaking. This is a classic buy-low, sell-high scenario. The market is judging results and records, not ingredients. Tennessee hasn’t been as bad as their results suggest, and Louisville isn’t as bulletproof as their résumé implies. Thanks to that impression however we get the Vols in their own barn at a reduced price. We’ll take that.

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